Guest Blogger Russ Duley JR. - conquer and possess it

As I woke up this morning, I was unsettled in my mind and spirit. I found myself allowing the pressure of life, beat down on me like an anvil. My wife left for work, and as I was nervously moving around the house trying to get the kids ready for school. God told me to worship him. I stood in my kitchen and begin to worship the lord. As I began to worship. God brought me to the story, of the 12 spies who were supposed to go and look at the land, which God had promised them. A land of milk and honey, a land of peace and prosperity.  As I read this story again, I was keyed in on the report of the spies, one of them came back with a bad report. They said their enemies were giants, and that their kingdoms, were too well fortified, and they would not be able to defeat them...This is what HITS me, like a punch to the stomach.
If you look at, the attitude of Joshua. He says right away ( WE CAN TAKE THE LAND. WE ARE WELL ABLE.) See, Caleb and Joshua believed in God. They made a choice that day, when they saw the Giants, to believe in God and what he can do, which is why he wanted to go back immediately, and drive out the Giant, because with God on their side, He was ( WELL ABLE). God then tells Joshua and Caleb that they and the younger generation under 20 years of age would be the ones, who would be able to go into the Promised Land, because they had “wholeheartedly followed God.” They had full faith, and belief in God that He could defeat, all of their enemies, once they went into the Promised Land, to conquer and possess it.

I made a call to my father, and told him what I was going through, He told me; "that every day we have a choice to believe and have faith in God. Or to live in fear" . As I thought about my father’s words, and the story God pointed me to, I took this from it.

I believe the Promised Land for today’s Christian, refers to God’s call on that person’s life. For the Christian who will fully surrenders their entire life over to God the Father – I believe that God will place a specific call or calls. on that person’s life. However, it may take many years before God releases this person into what their true calling is going to be for Him. Sometimes, it may take years of preparation to get ready for this call. Often you may go through Trials and problems.
However, once this call comes in, and you are getting ready to cross over into your Promised Land, many Christians get cold feet at the last minute and walk out on their call. They start to get too focused on all the negative possibilities they will encounter if they take the call just like the 10 spies did with God the Father. Fear starts to set in, and they then bail out of the boat. This is what I love about this story.
This is why the above story is so powerful. The Israelites lost their one and only chance to go into this Promised Land due to one main reason – fear and lack of full faith and belief in the power of God to see them through.
They were too scared of the giants they saw in the promised land. They were supposed to possess, – and they did not have enough faith and belief in God that He could conquer and defeat these giants for them. As a result, they lost out on the biggest blessing of their entire life. If you look at this story, there are two keys to success his strong faith and belief in God, and the fact that he had always “wholeheartedly followed God. At my father told me on the phone,
You have two choices. You can either let fear and panic set in. Just like the Isrealites  did, and lose your one and only chance to enter your Promised Land, – or you can have the same strong faith and belief in God  Joshua had – and go in there with a kick-butt attitude you will be completely victorious, and you will accomplish everything that God will want you to accomplish for Him. Check this out and I will shut up. After Joshua fully succeeded in all of his missions for the Lord, he makes the comment shortly before he dies that God had not failed to give him every ounce of land that his foot had stepped on.

God told Joshua that his enemies would be taken out, and that he would be given total victory as long as he stayed with God’s instructions on how to do all of this. Joshua saw his call completely through and when he died, he died a man with his call and mission from God totally fulfilled.

My two  Centimes is this. We are  able to have peace,  victory blessing in health, in our marriages, children,  and our ministries.  We are well capable in complete victory through our Lord and savior in every area of our life. The choice is yours. 


God Bless,

Russ Duley Jr.